There is one thing, though: today is April Fool's Day. Could it be that this pile of unlikely sounding bollocks is meant to be unlikely sounding? Could this be Gordon trying to do a joke?

The trouble is, when every day you run obviously false stories supported by blatantly invented quotes from transparently non-existent people, how would you flag up when your readers are meant to be in on the joke?

On this day, readers are well-advised to approach newspaper stories with enough salt ready to cure a haddock. But every day is like that for the Bizzare column.